Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve 11 Configuration Guide

Brand: Blackmagic

Model: DaVinci Resolve 11

Type: Configuration Guide

WINDOWS OS SYSTEM CONFIGURATIONS

July 2014 Edition

DAVINCI RESOLVE FOR WINDOWS - CERTIFIED CONFIGURATION GUIDEDAVINCI RESOLVE FOR WINDOWS - CERTIFIED CONFIGURATION GUIDE

Table of Contents

DaVinci Resolve for Windows 3

Windows Power Conﬁguration 9

Performance Conﬁguration 9

Installing the DaVinci Resolve Application 10

Installing or Updating Third Party Drivers 11

NVIDIA CUDA GPUs 11

AMD/ATI GPUs 11

First Time You Start DaVinci Resolve 13

Conﬁguring Third Party Control Panels 14

System Conﬁgurations 15

Generic PC Motherboard System 15

ASUS P9X79E-WS Motherboard 16

HP Z820 17

Supermicro SuperServer 7047GR-TRF 18

PCIe Expansion Chassis 20

Shopping List 21

DaVinci Resolve Control Surface 28

Dimensions and Weights 28

Warranty 29

DAVINCI RESOLVE FOR WINDOWS - CERTIFIED CONFIGURATION GUIDE

DaVinci Resolve for Windows

DaVinci Resolve combines the world's most

advanced color corrector and image enhancement

system with powerful multitrack online editing, so

now you can edit, color correct, ﬁnish and deliver

all from one application!

Whether you are just starting your editing or grading

career, building a post production facility or upgrading

your existing DaVinci Resolve suite, this guide contains

important information which will help you buy, build

and conﬁgure your system.

The system you select or build may be based on

what you already have and can update, or a speciﬁc

operational or technical requirement.

As a guide, if your projects are SD or low resolutions

for the web, you could use a lower powered system

compared to the needs of a client supervised 2K or

4K grading session for a TVC or feature ﬁlm. For low

to medium budget HD projects quite often the mid-

range powered systems are sufﬁcient.

With the appropriate hardware and conﬁguration,

DaVinci Resolve for Windows operates on current

lntel based server, desktop and laptop computers.

The hardware conﬁguration you select has a signiﬁcant

impact on the performance of the overall system. To

achieve the best possible experience it is essential

to build your DaVinci Resolve system with high

performance computer hardware including at least

one high performance graphics processor (GPU).

As DaVinci Resolve will use all the available resources

to provide the fastest possible processing the

conﬁguration deﬁnes not only the speed which you

can edit, playback and grade but also the time to

render your ﬁnished timeline.

For your client or grading monitor/projector, DaVinci

Resolve also supports the range of Blackmagic Design

video l/O cards to provide a SDl output to your

calibrated grading display.

Building the world’s highest performing editing and color grading

system is simple with this easy to follow guide.

DAVINCI RESOLVE FOR WINDOWS - CERTIFIED CONFIGURATION GUIDE

The secret to selecting the correct system

conﬁguration for your needs is deﬁne a few key

parameters. If you are planning UHD and 4K editing

and or grading with clients in attendance, you

should select a more powerful multiple GPU

conﬁguration. Different conﬁgurations are detailed

below to help your selection. These all use Windows

8.1 Pro and or Windows Pro 7 with SP1.

For HD work with the occasional UHD job,

particularly if working in ProRes or DNxHD, a mid

range conﬁguration is suitable. You will notice

some performance limitations with 4K-6K source

images and when using optical ﬂow speed changes,

temporal processing and noise reduction work.

The laptops listed in this guide are supported for

HD work and while they have some processing

limitations, their excellent portability means they

are often found in the ﬁeld and used for on set

work. These systems are not optimized for UHD,

optical ﬂow speed changes, temporal processing

and noise reduction work.

Please review the different conﬁgurations detailed

below to ﬁnd the right system for your needs.

Generic Intel Pro Motherboards

If you don't need guaranteed performance and have

a tight budget you can consider one of the many

generic pro motherboards now available.

The key consideration when selecting a generic pro

motherboard is not just how many fast PCle Gen3 x 16

slots that are available, but how many are full speed

when other slots are used. Often when you read the

ﬁne print, these motherboards only offer x16 speed

when just one or two slots are used.

The ASUS motherboard listed below is however a

suitable option.

You will also ﬁnd below a list of suppliers who can offer

a turnkey system using this or a similar motherboard.

ASUS P9X79E-WS

The ASUS P9X79E-WS motherboard is ideal for

DaVinci Resolve users who want to build a powerful

and yet low cost editing and color grading system,

particularly for HD work.

As there is only a single CPU in this system you

should use the fastest one you can buy. You should

also consider that for CPU intensive operations, like

decompressing 4K, 5K and 6K camera Raw ﬁles, this

single CPU system will be slower than the following

dual CPU systems.

This motherboard speciﬁcation includes 4 x PCle Gen

3.0x16 slots conﬁgured as x16/x16/x16/x16 when only

using the blue PCle slots. If any black PCle slots are

used then the bandwidth of the adjacent blue slots

halves, thus providing x16/x8/x8/x8/x16/x8/x8 in the

full conﬁg.

lt's therefore quite important to carefully consider

board placement in these x16 slots and to avoid x8

slots if possible, even when using a PCle expander.

Recommendations are made in the ASUS section below.

Which Platform?

DAVINCI RESOLVE FOR WINDOWS - CERTIFIED CONFIGURATION GUIDE

Generic Pro Laptops

Few older laptop computers have had sufﬁcient GPU

power and screen resolution to operate DaVinci

Resolve. There has however in the last year been an

increasing number of systems with the new NVIDIA

GPUs which are often suitable.

The Dell Precision M6800 is one such system. We

recommend the larger GPU memory options, e.g.

the NVIDIA Quadro K5100M with 8GB of dedicated

GDDR5 memory, or at least the NVIDIA Quadro

K4100M with 4GB.

Be sure to always order a laptop with sufﬁcient screen

resolution such as 1920x1080, and at least 16GB of

system RAM.

512GB of SSD system disk is also recommended.

Details can be found in the shopping section of

this guide.

HP Z820 Workstation

The HP Z820 Workstation provides a ﬂexible and simple

workhorse for previewing and grading material up to

and including 4K video. It can be used as a desktop

tower or rack-mounted and contains a single power

supply. It provides fast image processing using three,

single-width, PCIe3 x16 slots that do not share bus

resources. One of these slots is used for the GUI and

the other for image processing.

Additional image processing power can be added

using a PCIe expansion chassis. This computer is

widely available from resellers worldwide.

Supermicro SuperServer 7047GR-TRF

The Supermicro SuperServer 7047GR-TRF is a more

powerful conﬁguration suitable for stereoscopic

grading, UHD and 4K-DCl video. It can be used

as a desktop tower or rack-mounted and contains

redundant power supplies.

It provides very fast image processing using up to four,

double-width, PCle3.0 x16 slots for greater throughput

and ﬂexibility. One of these slots is used for the GUl

and the remainder can be used for image processing.

Additional image processing power can be added

using a PCle expansion chassis. This computer is

generally available from resellers who specialize in

server computers.

The Supermicro SuperServer is also the certiﬁed

platform for Linux conﬁgurations should you wish to

upgrade in the future.

DAVINCI RESOLVE FOR WINDOWS - CERTIFIED CONFIGURATION GUIDE

With the increasing use of digital cameras projects

now often include camera clips at UHD, 4K-DCl or

higher resolutions. While some cameras provide

UHD or 4K or higher capture resolutions they usually

store the images as compressed data as this takes

less storage space and bandwidth.

However for editing and grading, the compressed

data needs to be decompressed to the full RGB per

pixel bit depth which will use four or more times the

processing power of a HD image for the same real

time grading performance. The GPU RAM therefore

becomes a very important factor when dealing with

UHD and 4K-DCl timelines.

Assuming your system has sufﬁcient GPU RAM to

play UHD and 4K-DCl images, one way to improve

your editing and grading experience is to use a HD

resolution timeline and displayed on a HD monitor.

After you have completed your edit and grade

simply change the timeline resolution for a UHD or

4K-DCl render.

There are many potential speed limits within this 4K

pipeline so depending on the clip codec, CPU speed

and number of cores, system RAM, the number of

GPUs, their core count and GPU RAM, motherboard

slot speed, disk speed, etc. each of these can affect

the full 4K playback grade and display in real time.

The Resolve GUl is optimized for 2560 x 1440 screen

resolution but will work down to 1920 x 1080. Dual

GUl monitors are also supported and these can be

different resolutions within the specs listed above.

UHD and 4K-DCl lmage Processing GUI Monitor

PCle and Thunderbolt

™

Expanders

Windows desktop or rack mount computers offer

connection to an external expander chassis via

its PCle motherboard connector. This permits

extra GPUs to be installed for use by the unique

processing controller in DaVinci Resolve. While

there are a number of expanders available in the

market only a few have been tested and certiﬁed for

use with DaVinci Resolve.

Please refer to the PCle Expander details later in

this guide.

At this time there are no Thunderbolt expanders

certiﬁed for use with GPUs however you can use a

ThunderBolt expander for a ﬁbre channel adapter,

storage interface or raid controller, video card or

even a Red Rocket. The shopping list later in this

guide details tested models and conﬁgurations.

DAVINCI RESOLVE FOR WINDOWS - CERTIFIED CONFIGURATION GUIDE

All editors and colorists working on TV or film

deliverables will need to use a proper color calibrated

monitor connected to a SDl video l/O card for 2D or

3D monitoring. This device will occupy a PCle slot on

the motherboard , a USB 3.0 port or a Thunderbolt

port depending on the video card you select.

DaVinci Resolve supports the Blackmagic Design range

of DeckLink and UltraStudio video l/O devices for SDl

video and embedded audio ingest and playback.

These l/O device are used for connecting your client,

editing and calibrated monitor. Users can loop a single

feed from the VTR to the client monitor or connect the

second SDl output directly to the monitor.

If you use the DeckLink 4K Extreme video card and

your facility has a UHD/4K-DCl display that accepts

a single 6G SDl or two 3G SDl cables, or HDMl you

can use this DeckLink card to connect directly to

your monitor.

The DeckLink Studio 4K supports SDl and HD-SDl

video with 8 channels of audio. It also features HDMl

audio and video monitoring, external sync and VTR

control via a RS-422 connection. All features are

included as standard.

The UltraStudio 4K offers a variety of input and output

connections in a rack mount chassis and is connected

via Thunderbolt to the computer.

You can also use the UltraStudio Mini Recorder and

Mini Monitor with DaVinci Resolve however there is

no ingest or tape transport controls available with

these devices.

For DaVinci Resolve to use the BMD video l/O

devices you will need to install the Desktop Video

drivers, which came with your l/O device or the

updates which are available from the support page

at www.blackmagicdesign.com.

Connecting a Calibrated Edit, Client and Grading Monitor

File System and Media Storage

DaVinci Resolve for Windows supports a number

of internal and external storage systems however

almost any storage, designed for high bandwidth

media and formatted in the standard Windows

NTFS disk format, will be suitable for use.

An external disk array and a RAlD or HBA card

could be used for additional disk performance and

storage, especially for 2K, UHD and 4K-DCl media.

Facilities with SAN based shared storage can work

concurrently with projects that are being graded in

other Mac, Windows or Linux suites.

The most common connection method for the

SAN storage is via dual 8Gbit or single 16Gbit Fiber

Channel connections to a FC card in the Resolve

workstation. This can be direct or via a FC switch.

Resolve supports the Quantum StorNext ﬁle system

so you should install and use the StorNext version as

recommend by your local Quantum support ofﬁce

for your operation system.

The Preferences option under the DaVinci Resolve

menu is where you can add or remove internal and

external disk storage for use with Resolve. The ﬁrst

volume in the list will be used to store gallery stills

and cache ﬁles so this should be a drive that is

always connected and accessible to your system.

DAVINCI RESOLVE FOR WINDOWS - CERTIFIED CONFIGURATION GUIDE

Thunderbolt

Storage Connection

System Connection Diagram

RESOLVE CONTROL SURFACE

SPEAKERS

GUI MONITOR

GRADING MONITOR

RESOLVE COMPUTER

ULTRASTUDIO SDI

RESOLVE CONTROL SURFACE

SPEAKERS

GUI MONITOR

GRADING MONITOR

MEDIA STORAGE

RESOLVE COMPUTER

PCIe EXPANSION

Basic Conﬁguration

Advanced Conﬁguration

DAVINCI RESOLVE FOR WINDOWS - CERTIFIED CONFIGURATION GUIDE

DaVinci Resolve is a demanding application and it is

important to ﬁrst ensure your workstation is conﬁgured

to avoid going in to sleep mode or hibernation.

From the Control Panel click on Power Options. Under

"Select a power plan", click "Show additional plans"

and then click "High Performance".

Click "Change plan settings" and ensure the

computer is set to "Never" sleep.

Click "Change advanced power settings" and ensure

all the "Sleep" settings are set to "Never" or "Off".

Click "Apply", "OK", "Save changes" and close out

of the control panel.

Performance Conﬁguration

You will need to conﬁgure your windows system for

maximum performance. Right click Computer and

select the Properties option.

Then click Advanced System Settings and on the

Advanced tab now select Settings.

This opens the Performance Options window. In the

ﬁrst tab, Visual Effects, select the Custom radio button.

All the checkboxes below should now be de-selected.

For Windows 7 Pro users, now select the last checkbox,

Use visual styles on windows and buttons, then select

OK and close all the windows. This selection is not

required for Windows 8 Pro systems.

Windows Power Conﬁguration

DAVINCI RESOLVE FOR WINDOWS - CERTIFIED CONFIGURATION GUIDE

Installing or updating Resolve is essentially the

same process.

First, login as the user that will be operating Resolve.

You will need an Administrator password to install

the software on your system and we recommend

that DaVinci Resolve be installed into the standard

Applications folder on your startup hard disk.

Insert the Resolve DVD or open the downloaded

executable and when the installer window opens,

doubleclick the 'DaVinci Resolve Executable' and

follow the onscreen prompts to install the software.

The installation process takes just a couple of minutes.

When the installation has been completed, you will

be prompted to restart your workstation. The installer

will add the application to the Program Files folder

and will place a shortcut on your Desktop making it

easy to launch DaVinci Resolve.

For the full version of DaVinci Resolve, the included

USB dongle contains the software license and must

be connected to your computer before launching the

Resolve software.

For Resolve to use the DeckLink card or, UltraStudio

for video l/O you will need to install the latest Desktop

Video drivers. These are available from the support

page at www.blackmagicdesign.com.

If you use Avid Media Composer or Adobe Premiere

Pro on the same computer as Resolve, and you wish to

use these applications with a DeckLink or UltraStudio,

install the latest Desktop Video drivers after installing

your editing applications. Blackmagic Desktop Video

drivers install associated easy setup options and

presets for a number of editing applications.

Installing the DaVinci Resolve Application

DAVINCI RESOLVE FOR WINDOWS - CERTIFIED CONFIGURATION GUIDE

DaVinci Resolve uses a number of third party drivers

which you may need to install or update depending

on the DaVinci Resolve and OS version and also the

hardware conﬁguration you are using.

DaVinci Resolve 11 for Windows will use CUDA on

NVlDlA hardware and OpenCL on AMD/ATl GPUs

however systems running both NVlDlA and AMD/

ATl hardware simultaneously are not supported on

DaVinci Resolve for Windows systems.

For systems using AMD/ATl GPUs, you will need

to install the correct drivers from the AMD

support website.

NVIDIA CUDA GPUs

NVIDIA Drivers

When you install your NVIDIA GPU you will need

to download and install the NVIDIA driver for

that speciﬁc GPU. Usually it's the latest driver

for the most powerful GPU in your system that's

required. If the message“, WARNING: No CUDA

Acceleration Hardware Detected,“ appears when

you launch Resolve and your workstation contains

the recommended NVIDIA GPUs, you will need

to quit Resolve and update to the recommended

NVIDIA driver.

AMD/ATI GPUs

AMD provides a driver installer which you can use to

automatically install and conﬁgure the appropriate

drivers for your AMD/ATl GPU.

Go to http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/

Pages/index.aspx and follow the steps 1 through

5 to select the Workstation Graphics, GPU series

and model and ﬁnally Windows 8.1 - 64 bit to then

request the results from your query.

The query should provide an AMD Software suite

to download and run which will install the drivers

for your GPU.

In order to enable the AMD FirePro GPUs to use

their entire memory they need to run in 64-bit mode.

On Windows OS, you need to perform the following

steps to conﬁgure 64-bit GPU operation.

1. Right click on 'My Computer'

Select Properties.

Select the 'Advanced system settings' from the

left panel.

3. In the ‘Advanced' tab, select the 'Environment

Variables' button.

Installing or Updating Third Party Drivers

DAVINCI RESOLVE FOR WINDOWS - CERTIFIED CONFIGURATION GUIDE

4. Then select ‘New…’ under user variables.

5. Enter the variable name 'GPU_FORCE_64BIT_

PTR' and variable value as 1.

Select OK on all the windows one by one to

close them.

Start Resolve. (There is no need to restart

the machine).

Rocket drivers and ﬁrmware

You can decode and play RED r3d ﬁles using the

CPU and GPU or if you install a Red Rocket/Rocket-X

in your workstation or expander you will need to

manually install the RED Rocket drivers and ﬁrmware

from the RED website for use with Resolve.

It is important to use the version of the Red Rocket/

Rocket-X driver and also ﬁrmware that is certiﬁed

for use with DaVinci Resolve.

Please refer to Readme ﬁle that is supplied with each

version of Resolve for the speciﬁc certiﬁed drivers

and Rocket ﬁrmware that is correct for that version

of DaVinci Resolve.

The drivers and ﬁrmware are available for download

from www.red.com/downloads.

DAVINCI RESOLVE FOR WINDOWS - CERTIFIED CONFIGURATION GUIDE

There are three important hardware items to conﬁgure

when you ﬁrst start the Resolve application. Open the

Hardware Setup by selecting the Preferences window

from the DaVinci Resolve application menu.

The ﬁrst tab shows the System Overview where you

can verify that Resolve has found your GPUs and any

Red Rocket cards if installed.

The ﬁrst location in the storage list will become the

primary location for images, all proxies, cached ﬁles

and gallery stills. This location will usually not be your

system disk but a speciﬁcally installed permanent disk

for media. Often it's an internal or external RAlD disk

array and it needs plenty of storage capacity.

Click on the "+" (add) button to add a volume, folder or

mount point to the list of disk storage for your media.

Click on the "-" (remove) button to remove a volume,

folder or mount point from the list of disk storage.

We recommend you identify your primary drive now

and then add and remove other drives as needed

but don't change the primary drive until you have

considered how to back up and restore your stills.

In the Video l/O and GPU tab select which capture

and playback device you will use for SDl monitoring.

Depending on your workﬂow, this device may also

be connected to a VTR or camera.

If you are using Resolve Live, the Video l/O and GPU

tab includes the option to select the video input

capture device.

In the Control Panel tab choose which control panel

hardware you have connected to your computer.

DaVinci Resolve for Windows supports the current

USB 2.1 generation of DaVinci Resolve Control Surface

but can also be used with the Avid Artist Color,

JLCooper Eclipse CX and Tangent Devices WAVE

and Element control panels. Details on connection

follow this section.

The Advanced tab is generally not required by most

facilities as its for speciﬁc system conﬁgurations. You

should leave this blank unless directed otherwise.

After changing any of these preferences select save

and restart the DaVinci Resolve application.

First Time You Start DaVinci Resolve

DAVINCI RESOLVE FOR WINDOWS - CERTIFIED CONFIGURATION GUIDE

You can use DaVinci Resolve with your mouse and

keyboard, with a pen and tablet and also with one

of the supported third party control panels. DaVinci

Resolve supports the Avid Artist Color, JLCooper

Eclipse CX, or either of the Tangent Devices WAVE

or Element control panels.

Refer to the instructions from the panel vendor and

review with the directions below to conﬁgure the

panel to work with DaVinci Resolve.

After ﬁrst starting the Resolve application, open the

Hardware Setup by selecting 'Preferences' from the

DaVinci Resolve application menu. In the Preferences

window, select the Control Panel tab and choose

which control panel hardware you have connected

to your workstation. Save the updated preferences

and restart the DaVinci Resolve application.

The Tangent Devices WAVE is a USB device and

requires no special conﬁguration for use with DaVinci

Resolve. Just plug it in to your workstation and it will

work. The Tangent Devices Element Bundle is a set

of four USB panels that connect to your workstation

via a 4-port USB 2.0 hub.

You will need to download and install the 'Tangent

Hub support pack' to use the panels with DaVinci

Resolve. Once the Tangent Hub is installed, plug the

panels into your workstation and they will work with

Resolve. The Tangent Hub installer for Windows can

be downloaded from http://www.tangentdevices.

co.uk/support.asp.

If using a JLCooper Eclipse CX, follow the Eclipse

CX documentation to connect and conﬁgure it with

an Ethernet port on your workstation. Then launch

Resolve, use the Preferences to select the Eclipse

CX panel and click "Save." If you have changed the

lP address or port from the default panel settings,

enter the lP address and port number for your panel

and then click "Save." Restart the DaVinci Resolve

application and you will see the panel menus as soon

as the application starts.

The Avid Artist Color panels installation is generally

quite straight forward. If your workstation is

connected to a network with a DHCP server, just

connect an Ethernet cable from the panel to the same

network switch. Install the EUcontrol application

that comes with the panel, or download it from the

Avid support site.

Launch the application and you will notice the E icon

towards the right side of the top menu bar. When the

icon is solid, the panel is communicating with the EU

control application and, once selected in the DaVinci

Resolve preferences, the panel will display Resolve

menus at the next restart of the Resolve application.

If you are not using a DHCP server, refer to the Avid

Artist Color installation instructions for setting the lP

address of the panel and workstation. It should take

just 30 seconds to set.

Conﬁguring Third Party Control Panels

DAVINCI RESOLVE FOR WINDOWS - CERTIFIED CONFIGURATION GUIDE

This section describes three different system

conﬁgurations so you can decide which best

suits your operational needs. One uses an ASUS

motherboard but is an example of a generic

system which you can build yourself. The second

conﬁguration is based on the HP Z820 and

supports dual CPUs. The third system is also a

dual CPU system which includes the maximum

number of fast PCle slots for processing cards. All

systems can use an expansion chassis for more

GPUs but you should only install a single GUl GPU

in your computer if you plan on using an expander.

Details on where to connect the expander HBA

and GPUs are shown below.

There are a number of third party vendors of

turnkey computer platforms that can also conﬁgure

and test a system speciﬁcally for DaVinci Resolve.

A few of these vendors are listed with their web

sites later in this section.

Generic PC Motherboard System

The ASUS P9X79E-WS motherboard is ideal for

DaVinci Resolve users who want to build a powerful

and yet low cost editing and color grading system

particularly for HD work.

As there is only a single CPU in this system you

should use the fastest one you can buy. You should

also consider that for CPU intensive operations, like

decompressing 4K, 5K and 6K camera Raw ﬁles, this

single CPU system will be slower than the following

dual CPU systems.

GPU options are listed below. We recommend using

the same model GPU if multiple are used.

This motherboard speciﬁcation includes 4 x PCIe

Gen 3.0x16 slots (x16/x16/x16/x16) when only using

the blue slots. If any black slots are used then the

bandwidth of the adjacent blue slots halves, thus

providing x16/x8/x8/x8/x16/x8/ x8 in the full conﬁg.

It's therefore quite important to carefully consider

board placement in these x16 slots and to avoid x8

slots if possible.

Additional PCI Express cards, such as capture,

storage or even an expander HBA should only be

added to the slots shown in the tables below to

avoid causing a slow down in the performance of

the GUl and image processing GPU cards.

It is also very important you instal the latest USB 3.0

software drivers and ﬁrmware for your motherboard

if you plan on using an UltraStudio SDI. Please visit

the ASUS website for details.

Most ATX computer chassis provide as many as

10 disk bays for plenty of low cost, internal, SATA

disk storage. Alternatively external eSATA, Fibre

Channel or even USB 3.0 disk arrays can be used for

media storage depending on your image resolution

and number of ﬁles.

System Conﬁgurations

DAVINCI RESOLVE FOR WINDOWS - CERTIFIED CONFIGURATION GUIDE

Conﬁguration with a single or dual GPUs

Conﬁguration with PCIe Expander for multiple GPUs

ASUS P9X79E-WS Motherboard

Slot Board Function

1 DeckLink Video & Audio Monitoring

2 DeckLink HDMI Bracket HDMI Monitoring

3 GUI & Image Processing GPU GUI Monitor

4 --Don't use this slot--

5 Optional 2nd GPU Do not connect

6 --Don't use this slot--

7 Optional Storage/RAID Controller External Storage

Slot Board Function

1 DeckLink Video & Audio Monitoring

2 DeckLink HDMI Bracket HDMI Monitoring

3 GUI GPU GUI Monitor

4 --Don't use this slot--

5 Expander HBA PCIe Expander

6 --Don't use this slot--

7 Optional Storage/RAID Controller External Storage

Note that the Motherboard slot 1 is closest to the CPU.

PCle Expander options shown later in this guide.

DAVINCI RESOLVE FOR WINDOWS - CERTIFIED CONFIGURATION GUIDE

Conﬁguration with a single or dual GPUs

Conﬁguration with PCIe Expander for multiple GPUs

HP Z820 Workstation

Slot Board Function

1 DeckLink Video & Audio Monitoring

2 GUl & lmage Processing GPU GUI Monitor

3 --blocked--

4 Optional 2nd GPU Do Not Connect

5 --blocked--

6 Optional Storage/RAID Controller External Storage

7 DeckLink HDMI Bracket HDMI Monitoring

Slot Board Function

1 DeckLink Video & Audio Monitoring

2 GUI GPU GUI Monitor

3 --blocked--

4 Expander HBA PCIe Expander

5 --Don't use this slot--

6 Optional Storage/RAID Controller External Storage

7 DeckLink HDMI Bracket HDMI Monitoring

Note that the Motherboard slot is closest to the CPU.

PCle Expander options shown later in this guide.

HP Z820

The HP Z820 Workstation provides a ﬂexible and

simple workhorse for previewing and grading

material up to and including UHD and 4K-DCl video.

As this system has dual CPUs it is more suitable for

decompressing hi-res ﬁles, such as 4K, 5K and 6K

camera Raw.

The chassis provides fast image processing using

three, single-width, PCle Gen 3.0 x16 slots that do

not share bus resources.

One of these slots is used for the GUl and the other

for image processing GPUs. GPU options are listed

below. We recommend using the same model GPU

if multiple are used.

Additional PCl Express cards, such as capture, storage

or even an expander HBA should only be added to

the slots shown in the tables below to avoid causing a

slow down in the performance of the GUl and image

processing GPU cards.

DAVINCI RESOLVE FOR WINDOWS - CERTIFIED CONFIGURATION GUIDE

Supermicro SuperServer 7047GR-TRF

The Supermicro SuperServer 7047GR-TRF is a more

powerful conﬁguration suitable for stereoscopic

grading even at UHD and 4K-DCl resolutions. It can

be used as a desktop tower or rack-mounted and

contains redundant power supplies.

This motherboard provides very fast image processing

using up to four, double-width, PCle 3.0 x16 slots for

greater throughput and ﬂexibility.

One of these slots is used for the GUl and the other

for image processing GPUs.

GPU options are listed below. We recommend using

the same model GPU if multiple are used.

Additional PCl Express cards, such as capture, storage

or even an expander HBA should only be added to

the slots shown in the tables below to avoid causing a

slow down in the performance of the GUl and image

processing GPU cards.

The Supermicro SuperServer is also the certiﬁed

platform for Linux conﬁgurations should you wish to

upgrade in the future.

Supermicro SuperServer 7047GR-TRF

Slot Board Function

2 GUl & lmage Processing GPU GUI Monitor

4 Optional Storage/RAID Controller External Storage

5 --Don't use this slot--

6 Optional 2nd GPU Do not connect

7 --Don't use this slot--

8 Spare

9 --Don't use this slot--

10 DeckLink HDMI Bracket HDMI Monitoring

11 DeckLink Video & Audio Monitoring

Note that the Motherboard slot 11 is closest to the CPU.

Conﬁguration with a single or dual GPUs

DAVINCI RESOLVE FOR WINDOWS - CERTIFIED CONFIGURATION GUIDE

Supermicro SuperServer 7047GR-TRF

Slot Board Function

2 GUl & lmage Processing GPU GUI Monitor

4 Optional Storage/RAID Controller External Storage

5 --Don't use this slot--

6 Optional 2nd GPU Do not connect

7 --Don't use this slot--

8 Optional 3rd GPU Do not connect

9 --Don't use this slot--

10 DeckLink HDMI Bracket HDMI Monitoring

11 DeckLink Video & Audio Monitoring

Slot Board Function

2 GUl GPU GUI Monitor

4 Optional Storage/RAID Controller External Storage

5 --Don't use this slot--

6 Expander HBA PCIe Expander

7 --Don't use this slot--

8 Spare

9 --Don't use this slot--

10 DeckLink HDMI Bracket HDMI Monitoring

11 DeckLink Video & Audio Monitoring

Note that the Motherboard slot 11 is closest to the CPU.

Conﬁguration with a single or dual GPUs

Conﬁguration with PCIe Expander for multiple GPUs

DAVINCI RESOLVE FOR WINDOWS - CERTIFIED CONFIGURATION GUIDE

PCIe Expansion Chassis

In all system configurations, additional image

processing GPUs or even a RED Rocket card can

be added using a PCIe expansion chassis.

If you use one of the chassis recommended below,

install the expander HBA in the PCIe slot indicated and

then your image processing GPUs in the expander.

The GUI GPU should remain in the main computer as

should the DeckLink and a RAID controller if installed.

Note: There are multiple PCIe expander options listed

below. Not all offer Gen 3.0 x16 speed to every slot

and the power supply limits on some expanders make

them suitable for only one or two GPUs especially if

a RED Rocket card is also installed.

The expander tables below show the ideal slot to

use for the GPUs. Use the spare slots for other cards

if needed.

Slot Board

Image Processing GPU

Spare

Slot Board

Image Processing GPU

Spare

Slot Board

Image Processing GPU

Spare x8 slot

Slot Board

Spare x8 slot

Image Processing GPU

Spare

Slot Board

Spare

Image Processing GPU

CUBIX GPU-Xpander Desktop Elite

NetStor NA255A

Cyclone PCIe2-2707

CUBIX GPU-Xpander Rackmount Elite

CUBIX GPU-Xpander Rackmount 8

While this expander used x8 slots, in testing its

performance has shown to be acceptable.

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Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve 11 Configuration Guide

Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve 11 Configuration Guide

Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve 11 Configuration Guide

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